2011 has been a great year for Queen Fans, there has been the entire back catalog remastered and released with a bevy of extras. There has been a Queen museum, named Stormtroopers in Stilettoes that has been traveling to different European cities. One of my favorite things has been the outpouring of different books published on the band. I’m not even sure of the amount of books that have been published (or will be released) in 2011 and 2012. It seems that every time I turn around there is another new title.

When I came across this book, written by Mark Blake, I initially ignored it as I have many biographies already written on Queen in my library, and they pretty much all say the same thing. I have come to the conclusion that Queen, although one of my favorite bands, have made amazing music but had pretty boring lives. Much unlike The Beatles, for instance, who along with creating great music, they have such colorful and iconic lives. I decided to make a purchase when I found this title’s price tag temporarily dipped below the $10 mark. Yet after reading Mark Blake’s wonderful book, it seems to fill in the blanks between all of the usual dates and overtold stories. Mark Blake is a British journalist who has worked with Q Magazine and Mojo as well.

Within the 410 pages, Blake is able to give what is similar to an eye witness account with the help of new interviews from schoolmates of Freddie from the very early years in Bombay, former bandmates, roadies, musicians, and old and new(ish) quotes from the members of Queen themselves. The lives and the lifestyles of Queen finally come to life in a colorful way that grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go until the end. I might even say that finally here is a Queen book that is good enough even for non-Queen fans. Most other authors that have written about Queen painted a picture of the band living inside a bubble that keeps them isolated, while Mark Blake has shown that the band much more in touch with the world, musically and otherwise.

He also goes into some accidental reasons why their music changed so drastically after 1980. When Queen started recording in different countries due to tax reasons, they ended up in places such as Los Angeles, France and especially Munich. While in Munich, the band would often go to a place called The Sugar Shack to drink after the studio sessions. The band would enjoy other artists’ music over their sound system, and Queen would try their older numbers at The Sugar Shack as well. They would try out their classic upbeat numbers like Tie Your Mother Down, and they would be disappointed that it didn’t go over so well. Their music didn’t have the sparsity to go over as well as the other music which was carefully chosen for the club. The band then began recording new music for what became their album, The Game, which included numbers that would easily pass The Sugar Shack test; Another One Bites the Dust, Dragon Attack, Don’t Try Suicide and so on. Why did Queen go into the disco direction? You can blame (or credit) the Sugar Shack and Munich.

Even when writing about Freddie’s battle with AIDS, Blake goes back into early 1985 where Freddie was already showing signs of the disease with symptoms like oral thrush. The author explains that in the very early 80s doctors would notice that there were suddenly many homosexual men with the disease Kaposi’s Sarcoma, as well as a high percentage of gay men contracting the lung infection Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia (which Freddie died of), and yet startling almost in the same sentence stating “in a climate of suspicion and misinformation, tabloid headlines would dub AIDS ‘the gay plague’.” So while he gives a valid and in depth account of Freddie with the disease that kills him, he simultaneously exhibits his commitment to tow the party line and give his readers the politically correct caution that AIDS is not in fact a homosexual disease in the Western world. Blake also seems to be in love with the word 'fortnight', you'd think he'd want to vary it up a little with words and phrases like 'two weeks' or 'forteen days later.' There has to be at least a dozen instances of fortnight, that's just crazy dedication isn't it? 

Little things like good editing or fact checking seem to elude many books I read lately, although I tend to notice them more in Queen books than any other. He refers to the Queen song In the Lap of the Gods correctly a few times but then once the song title changed to the incorrect ‘In the Lap of the Chords’ title. He incorrectly writes the number a hundred and twenty thousand as 120,0000. There a few more that didn’t escape my notice, as well as other Queen fans out there.
For most of the book, the author would go into the songs from each album release with a non-critical sense, giving the reader just the facts, although when we get to their 1991 album Innuendo, he unapologetically pans the album. The move seems out of left field and uncalled for. Yet as a whole, I really liked this book and would easily recommend it and would also hope that the upcoming films on the band would refer to these pages often when writing their scripts.

The book has 410 pages, with sixteen pages of black and white photos, some which I have never seen before.


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Title: Is This the Real Life: The Untold Story of Queen
Author: Mark Blake
Hardcover
410 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-306-81959-9
Released: 03/22/2011
Rating: 4 stars

Recommended: Yes